December 15, 2022 The Education Department ‘failed to protect some of the most vulnerable student-loan borrowers’ who had their wages stripped from them illegally during the pandemic, Elizabeth Warren says of a new ‘alarming report’ On Thursday, the Student Borrower Protection Center released a report that found, via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request submitted by advocacy group Student Defense, that the Education Department continued to garnish student-loan borrowers' wages after Congress required the department to cease those collection tactics when the pandemic began... Learn More
December 15, 2022 Student Debtors Say Life’s Better With Finish Line in Sight “I think when you get close to forgiveness, it starts to change the mental maps of people,” says Dan Collier, assistant professor in the leadership department at the University of Memphis, who helped write the report for the Student Borrower Protection Center, or SBPC. The results come from surveying 785... Learn More
December 15, 2022 Uncovered Documents Expose the Government’s Stunning Failure to Control its Student Loan Collection Machine During the COVID-19 Pandemic A new report from the SBPC reveals that ED may be powerless to implement protections for defaulted borrowers as required by law and that it struggled to end illegal garnishments during COVID-19 for far longer and in much more profound ways than previously known. Learn More
December 15, 2022 Wage garnishments for student loan debt continued despite payment pause, records show A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request analyzed by the advocacy group Student Borrower Protection Center revealed the Education Department continued garnishing people’s wages at least through August 2021, 10 months longer than the agency’s inspector general reported. “It’s a leaky faucet that they can’t seem to fix,” said Persis... Learn More
December 14, 2022 The student loan company being used to attack Biden’s debt relief plan According to the Student Borrower Protection Center, 90% of Black and 72% of Latinx students in the U.S. take out loans to attend college, compared with 66% of white students. Learn More
December 14, 2022 An error email leaves 9 million student loan borrowers in limbo Persis Yu, deputy executive director and managing counsel for the Student Borrower Protection Center, says that this email puts many borrowers back "in limbo." "[Tuesday's email] may not seem like a big deal, but borrowers are trying to figure out how to move on with their lives," Yu says. "And... Learn More
December 14, 2022 Student loan borrower eligibility will be determined ‘if and when we prevail in court’ “The letter of the law is clear: canceling student debt was legal when Joe Biden announced his historic debt relief plan in August and remains so today,” said Mike Pierce, executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center. “In the wake of a series of radical decisions decimating fundamental rights... Learn More
December 13, 2022 Student Loan Forgiveness Email Approvals Sent To Millions Add To Confusion Characterizing the email snafus as “disastrous errors,” the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) wrote to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona last week, arguing that “this stunning and embarrassing display of incompetence by one of the big financial firms that manages the student loan system is sowing further confusion” and is “fanning... Learn More
December 9, 2022 Even With Payments Paused, Student Loan Borrowers Struggle “This extension means that struggling borrowers will be able to keep food on their tables during the holiday season — and the coming months — as the Administration does everything it can to beat back the baseless and backward attacks on working families with student debt,” said Mike Pierce, executive... Learn More
December 8, 2022 77 Percent of Young Voters Said Student Debt Relief Motivated Them to Vote Among 1,500 midterm voters polled by the Student Borrower Protection Center and Seven Letter Insight after the general election in November, just over half (51 percent) said that student debt relief was either the only reason they voted or was very or somewhat motivating to their decision to go to... Learn More